Southern University scrambles to keep teams eligible for NCAA tourney

Nick Johnson of the Arizona Wildcats is fouled by Frank Snow of the Southern University Jaguars during the first half of the college basketball game at McKale Center on Dec. 19 in Tucson, Ariz.(Photo: Christian Petersen, Getty Images)

Southern University is running out of time to meet an NCAA mandate that could keep several of the school's athletic programs ineligible for postseason play.

The school has been attempting to satisfy the NCAA requests for additional and corrected paperwork regarding the academic progress of student-athletes dating back to 2009.

The ban is most significant because its men's and women's basketball teams each are in first place of the Southwestern Athletic Conference and contending for automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. Three other winter sports — men's and women's indoor track and women's bowling are also in jeopardy of missing the postseason if the school cannot file the adequate documents in time.

Southern athletic director William Broussard and his staff issued the following statement: "We are collaborating with the NCAA and developing strategies for providing usable data in a timely fashion."

"We're working as diligently as we can," Broussard said last week. "It's a lot of nights and a lot of weekends. We're going to continue to work until the NCAA says there's zero possibility (of lifting the bans). We're working under the assumption that if we continue to meet a progression of deadlines there will be minimal harm to the winter sports."

Some of that data was due by the end of Wednesday, but an NCAA spokesperson said until a final determination can be made, a postseason ban is in play.

"All Southern athletics teams are currently ineligible for NCAA postseason opportunities," NCAA associate director Michelle Brutlag Hosick said in a statement. "A significant amount of work must be completed before NCAA postseason eligibility can be restored."

Southern baseball coach Roger Cador told WAFB, "Athletics is a business and we need to protect it and hire enough people to do the job correctly. And, I'm going to have to say to Chancellor Lorenz if we are able to get through that, he needs to give coach Broussard and all those people a big pay raise."